I have a friend whose birthday is the day after mine. We spoke yesterday and he was planning a big celebration. We both turn 60 this year. I have no such celebration planned. I’m hoping for a calm and quiet day and am eager to get on with my life. I have a vague sense that the coming decade will bring some big changes, but I don’t think that there is anything particularly significant about being 60 years old other than the fact that I now admit that I seem old to some of the children and youth in the church. My beard is white and I have less hair on the top of my head than I used to have. That is about it. I’m still the same person I used to be.

So I have no plans for a big celebration. However, just in case one of my family members is reading this, here are a few things that I would rather NOT receive as gifts in 2013.

The Stick N Find is a miniature tracking device that you can attach to whatever it is that you might want to find. It is about the size of a quarter, though a bit thicker and you can attach one to your TV remote control, another to your cat, another to your suitcase, another to any other device or item you think you might lose. The advertisement for the product suggest attaching one to your wife’s car, to your kid’s sneakers (assuming you want to track the kid wearing the sneakers, not find lost shoes), car keys, and the like. Then you install the application on your smart phone that allows you to set alarms when the devices are close or when the y go out of range. You can use the application to make the devices sound tones or emit light. Tracking devices are no longer the stuff of television spies and detectives. You can buy them and install them all around your home. However, I have no desire to own these devices. It isn’t that I don’t misplace things. I do that all the time. It is just that the way you find the misplaced items is to use your smartphone. The Stick N Find website doesn’t say what you should do when you misplace your smartphone. I know that is what I’d do and it would be difficult to explain to the person who gave you the Stick N Find. There are several companies working on similar devices including Tractive GPS pet trackers and GlobaTrac Tracdot luggage-tracking devices.

I think I can be perfectly happy without ever owning a pair of Hi-Fun Hi-Call knitted phone gloves. These are knitted gloves with a Bluetooth speaker and microphone sown into the tips of the fingers and thumb. I’m sure you know the one handed gesture that signals talking on the phone. Now with these gloves you can really do that while your phone is sitting somewhere else. The glove is all you need to carry on a conversation. Just hold your hand to your head. Talk about a good way to lose that cell phone. You set the phone down, go off walking with your gloved hand to your head and forget where you put the phone. Also I’m thinking it would be a bit strange to use the devices in the summer. Maybe you could do a Michael Jackson one glove bit, but it just seems like it isn’t my style. I’ll take a pass on this device.

Our grandson is ready to begin toilet training. But don’t count on his grandfather to purchase an iPotty for him. The iPotty is a training toilet with an integrated stand for an iPad to keep the child entertained while sitting on the potty. The idea is that a child won’t mind sitting longer if they’re watching a favorite cartoon or playing Angry Birds or Dora the Explorer on the iPad. The stand can be rotated between vertical and horizontal views and adjusted to three positions. It also comes with a removable screen guard cover to protect the iPad from whatever might accidentally come its way. From my point of view, the iPad already has an unfortunate name. I wish they had come up with something different to call the device, but the name seems to have stuck. I don’t own an iPad and have no plans for getting one at this point, but the idea of the iPotty somehow strikes me as one of the inventions of our time that isn’t and improvement. I’m thinking the world can get along without the invention.

Just in case anyone is thinking of purchasing one as a gfit to me, and I don’t think anyone is, but just in case, I’ll take a pass on the YotaPhone. I haven’t seen the device, but it is described in the web site as a phone with two displays. One is the typical touchscreen found on many smartphones. The other is an e-ink display. You can load information onto the e-ink display and still be able to see it when the regular display goes into sleep mode. It can be frustrating to have some piece of information that you are ready to display only to have it disappear as you wait for the opportunity to show it. I’ve had this happen with electronic boarding passes and my Starbucks card. I have the proper item displayed, but then end up holding up the line while I get back the missing item after my phone display has gone into sleep mode. Let’s see, unlock the screen, touch the proper app button, etc. etc. Still, I don’t think I need a YotaPhone. First of all I would have to learn which screen is which. Then I’d have to learn how to get the information I wanted displayed onto the screen that doesn’t go to sleep. I’m thinking right now that one thing I don’t need in my life is a device with more things to remember about how it is operated. Perhaps the person who likes the gloves with the speaker and microphone would like one of these.

There are hundreds of other items available that I’m thinking I can live without. You don’t need to get me a battery-powered fork that monitors the speed at which I eat or a vest that allows me to “feel” the music from my stereo. For my birthday this year, I think I’ll take my Chesnut Prospector canoe to the lake. It is a piece of technology with a design that is hundreds of years old. It doesn’t require batteries. It is not easily lost or misplaced. It operates silently. It has no “on” or “off” button – in fact there are no buttons at all.

Now if I can just remember where I put my paddle last fall . . .

Copyright © 2013 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.